Re: Standard Ada Preprocessor (Was: why ada is so unpopular ?)

["Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@comcast.net>]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> That works for some things, but it still will barf when a statement is 
> compileable for one target but not for another. I'm thinking of a case 
> where (for example) you can get one size of float for one target, but 
> for another target that size is not allowed...

I'm sorry, but to me this is heresy.  Not that you might want to specify 
a value for digits, I do that all the time.

But when it matters enough to specify it, it is IMPORTANT.  If a 
particular compiler doesn't support that specification, there is no 
point in trying to hide the problem.  The application code I wrote won't 
run in that environment.  End of story.

Well, not exactly end of story.  There are cases where I write code that 
uses IEEE extended precision if available, and when it is not uses IEEE 
double with different algorithms and other methods of maintaining the 
required precision, such as scaled (64-bit) integers.  That code is so 
different there is no point in trying to deal with it using ifdefs or 
whatever.  Two different matrix library bodies for the same 
specification is the best I can do.

-- 
                                           Robert I. Eachus

"The war on terror is a different kind of war, waged capture by capture, 
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